OUAN603 - Time Management Difficulties & Safeguards

With a project like this where I am working on several different elements at any given time I am well aware of time and the way it can easily get out of hand. In a way I feel more comfortable if I need to scale something back because I know that other areas of the project are there to back up to project if they need to. There have been different safeguards employed throughout the project, some of which I learnt to use through the dissertation module, that help to make sure deadlines are met as closely as possible. There is also a range of techniques that I used to cut back on time I needed to develop different things [such as creating backgrounds in 3D].

One of the biggest over arching constraints and somewhat unavoidable problems throughout the project was that the narrative itself [the foundation for the entire project] was constantly in develop, and quite complex in itself. So instead of having a relatively simplistic short story that I needed to create an animation from I was having to constantly make decisions so that the other outlets could actually be made. In other words, it had to be cohesive and consistent across all platforms but to do this the story had to be final before anything was made or the different pieces of the story puzzle wouldn't fit together like they should. This was the most difficult part of the project to deal with and to deal with this I attempted to base the media I created on the most concrete parts of the story, i.e the finalised sections that wouldn't be changed. Or alternatively, if it was something like a piece of art work, I could be a little more abstract and in that case if something small changed it wouldn't be too much of an issue or detrimental to the smaller piece itself.

Some other safeguards I used to make sure I was progressing at a steady rate were to plan what I would do each day as precisely as possible to be as efficient with how I spent my time. The days that were spent simply thinking about the story and trying to write it but not getting many words on the page were difficult because they felt like a waste but overall it was still progress in some form or another. Furthermore, I attempted to make sure I was writing the story whenever I had a spare fifteen minutes and even if I only managed to write a couple of sentences it was still progress towards furthering the story and the ability to write wherever whenever was a good advantage of this outlet within the project, compared to the others which needed specific conditions and software to work under. Fortunately, all of the people I collaborated with, both the voice actors and the translator were quick in their delivery of work so there was no drawbacks or time lost in those areas.

Overall, I used a combination of setting realistic goals with effective planning of time and a relative distribution of time to the different outlets to ensure that they are worked on in a fair way. For example, giving less time to artwork and giving more time to the development of the narrative and the animation work as it does take longer to create. This coupled with deadlines made it easier to gauge my progress and realise how much I could do in the given timeframe.